


Amber Eyes

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, E S K A N O, FUCK, Fratricide, Murder, Overdose, and both would be Bad for her in the end, be grateful esther wasnt here or wed have DOUBLE death, eska is a fucking beast (and not in the good sense), joey holy shit do something please oh fuck shit no not thAT, so ye, that is a Very Bad Idea, this is why eska and joey have no ties to the same family, welp there it goes theyre done theyre fucked
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-02 07:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16782724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: They had only been brothers once.It did not end well.





	Amber Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Esther Kline (mentioned) is Phantomthief_fee's

Joey had amber eyes.

One similarity. 

More things matched up.

Tan skin.

Unusual height.

Dark hair.

Limbs so slender they were almost all bone.

A shattered family.

Spoke Spanish, knew some German.

Had a brother, once, a real brother.

Not Josef.

He couldn't remember him.

He was too little to remember him.

He was trying so hard to keep his family together.

And he was failing.

He could hardly talk to Esther without shame lacing his voice.

He barely remembered his nieces and nephews' birthdays.

Josef still terrified him.

Every time Paul was even mentioned he felt whatever was left of his heart wither in a sad fear.

He was trying.

It was hard.

He was trying harder.

Then he remembered.

It was the day he hired him.

The moment he saw that blue eye.

Blue like a sky without clouds, without thoughts.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to forget.

_He_ certainly had.

All memories of before 5 years of age.

Cancelled.

To keep the suffering at bay.

But Joey could remember.

Anger. Fear. Sadness.

Then he was gone.

Shoved out the door.

Esther cried.

He hated it.

And now there he was.

Glaring down at him in pure hatred.

His own brother.

Eska.

He wasn't Eska before, but Joey couldn't remember what he was named.

It took a little.

Some days.

Some (many) stares.

Before Eska figured it out.

(They looked so alike.)

He was furious.

He was enraged.

He made it clear.

He despised Joey.

In screams of rage and pure hatred, he spelled it out the second he tried to approach him.

He was **not** his brother.

He did not **want** him as his brother.

He **hated** him **so much** and hated **everything associated with _him_**.

He wanted him to **_die_**.

Joey had asked him why.

Because he _hated him_ was the only answer he got.

Eska had hit him, storming away.

Joey followed him, pleading with him to stop.

"Don't you remember me at all?"

Piercing blue struck him.

  
"No."

"Wait, wait," Joey begged, "Esther, don't you remember her? Your sister? Your big sister?"

"NO! NO I DON'T REMEMBER HER!"

"She'd hold your hand and sing us lullabies... please...."

"NO!" he shouted hard, very hard, and his voice cracked sharply like crystal glasses falling rapidly to the floor as his hands flew to the sides of his head, "SHE NEVER DID! THERE WASN'T ANYONE TO DO THAT! I WAS THERE, AND THERE WERE JUST THEM. THREE CHILDREN. I HATED THEM. AND NOW I HATE YOU. AND HER. AND ALL THE PEOPLE YOU BRING WITH YOU."

"Hate me, please, by all means, but not Esther! Please, she cared about you so much...."

Tears simmered in his eyes, his voice breaking and his already shattered heart cracking all the more.

Eska began pulling his own hair and turning sharply left and right like a caged animal, shouting and yelling and digging deep into his own flesh with his nails.

"NO! SHE DIDN'T! SHE'S NOT HNIF OR HAAMPAT! SHE DOESN'T EXIST! NOT FOR ME!"

"I understand that... that what they did to you was wrong and cruel, but Esther and I never wanted you to get hurt-"

"YES YOU DID!"

Joey's tears flooded out of his eyes, cascading down his cheeks.

"Is there anything I can do to make it up t-to you?"

Eska curled in a ball, foam coming out of his mouth as he pulled and pulled and cried, his voice dropping suddenly.

"Die." he murmured in a wrathful plea, "Die, die, die, die, die..."

Joey didn't speak for a long time.

A weak smile bloomed on his thin lips.

"Okay."

The pill bottle weighed so much.

Not nearly as much as the broken fragments of his heart.

He carefully unscrewed the cap.

He wrote the letter in big clear letters, blinking back tears.

**_I hope this makes you happy_ **

_**I hope you'll get better** _

_**I hope you can forgive me** _

_**I hope you can see I love you** _

He counted the words.

Twenty five.

Tipping the jar, the pills fell out.

He picked up twenty five, smiling at the irony.

His twenty fifth birthday had been in a month.

In twenty five days, precisely.

It would be alright.

He dropped the pills in his mouth, swallowing them down and laying down to wait.

White. Amber. Blue.

Colors swirled his vision as he moaned in pain, but forced it down.

He was doing this for Eska.

He relaxed.

And... drifted... away.....

Someone forced him to vomit, causing the toxic sludge to spill from within him, making him cough his way back to the world of the living.

His amber eyes blinked with confusion at the person who saved him, meeting wide dual colored ones.

"Why did you... ?" he managed to sputter, "If you want me dead?"

Eska loomed over him.

" **My kill**."

Right. 

"Of course. I shouldn't have assumed... Right away."

Eska witnessed the man he'd just saved to kill, who deserved no sympathy from him, who could have been his brother, stand up on shaky legs and lovingly press a gun into the palm of his hands, wrapping the factotum's fingers around it and kissing the back of his hand like a dearly beloved. He remained still as a statue as Joey fell on his knees before him, fully accepting anything that would befall him.

"Go ahead, please."

He closed his eyes, hands clasped before him.

So this was how it was going to end.

A glare, the weapon cocking.

Bang.

Joey wouldn't have even flinched, in fact, he would have seemed hardly fazed.

Instead, the gun touched the ground softly.

A pair of big, gnarled hands grabbed Joey's shoulders gently.

He closed his eyes tightly, knowing what was in store.

Yet still, he barely contained a scream when he felt his clavicles snap like weak branches.

"We won't be done just like that." Eska snarled, moving on to his arm, cracking it with a growl.

Joey merely winced.

"No, we _won't_."

Coldly, methodically, the older man set aside the skull and spine, and broke every single bone in Joey's body, feeding off of his agonizing stifled whimpers and the half-shouts ripped from his throat against his will, until the simple act of breathing brought an inhuman pain to his victim.

He wanted him to see, and be in pain.

But the bastard's breath was sweet, loving, and accepting, and almost happy.

He _hated_ it.

He hit his face and broke his nose with a crunch.

The man who was not his brother and never had been so spat red water involuntarily and coughed reflexively.

"I hope you get better..." Joey's voice trembled though he smiled, reverberating against the shattered bones, blood trailing on his lips, his eyes sincere, "I hope it all will be good for you."

A bicolored stare burned against the amber irises that resembled it so. A hiss without mercy left the wooden skull.

"Shut your mouth."

Joey did.

He watched in silence as sharp nails dug wrathfully into his chest, tearing him open, revealing cracked ribs and frantically pulsing muscles.

Eska **_hated_** him with every single fiber of his being, and ripped him to pieces like a devoted Maenad, every tear an enunciation of his mad anger.

Joey was okay with this, even as Eska dumped him, more than half dead, all his bones broken, blood seeping out of him, skin torn to shreds, in a valley of garbage.

He was okay that Eska merely watched him get eaten alive by animals hungry for their next meal, not caring that the flesh was still breathing.

He was glad that he could do something for him, even if it was his death.

If Eska would get better if he was dead, he would accept that.

After all, what are brothers for?


End file.
